COUP D'ETAT IN TURKEY WAS TOO AMATEUR

Stefan Schennach: Attempted Coup in Turkey Looks Like Internal Staging

An attempt of a military coup in Turkey was too amateur and looks more like an internal staging instead of a real effort to take over the power, a lawmaker with the Social Democratic Party of Austria, Stefan Schennach, parliament member, told Sputnik on Sunday.

© AP Photo/ Emrah Gurel

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Late on Friday, Turkish authorities said that an attempted coup took place in the country. The coup was suppressed several hours later. Over 260 people were killed and hundreds were injured during the events, while nearly 3,000 people have already been detained.

"There is a little bit of bad taste in this story. Because why was everything prepared, the list of judges, the list of those people who are now arrested and not only from the military. So the bad taste is that staging [the coup] plays into the hands of [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan to change the state more and more. This coup was a very dilettante coup," Schennach said.

JUST HOW BADLY COULD CHINA HURT AMERICA IN BATTLE?

by Kyle Mizokami

ast month's confrontation at sea [the article was written in November 2015] between the People's Republic of China and the United States made one fact all too clear: The two countries have very, very different national interests in key strategic areas.

The United States, the dominant power in Asia and the Pacific, would rather retain the status quo while the rising power China wants to carve out its own sphere of influence in the South China Sea. These interests are for the most part mutually exclusive — that is, China's gain must come at a cost to the United States, and vice-versa.

While neither country is interested in war, the two sides are beginning to use military forces — such as the USS Lassen — to get their point across. This leads to an interesting question: If the two countries were to go to war tomorrow, just how much could China hurt the U.S.?

We all know the United States has the world's most powerful conventional and nuclear forces. And war with China is a long, long way off. But for all of the talk of China as a rising military power, modernizing its armed forces with more powerful, more efficient weapons, how much damage could China inflict on the United States?

HOW A RUSSIA VS. NATO WAR WOULD REALLY GO DOWN

by Kyle Mizokami

ast week saw a flurry of news reports that Putin's Russia could "steamroll" NATO forces in just five days, winning a quick victory in the Baltics that would drag Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania — and perhaps even Poland — kicking and screaming behind a new Iron Curtain.

Is it really possible that Russia, a shadow of the former Soviet Union, could accomplish this? As always, the truth is more complicated.

Michael Carpenter, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, told Congress he agreed with a think tank study that concluded NATO could not currently defend the Baltic States against a lightning Russian military campaign. The report says the three tiny countries, which collectively muster 11 battalions of mostly lightly armed troops, are no match for the 46 battalions of tanks, mechanized infantry, paratroops, marines, artillery, surface-to-surface missile, and attack helicopters Russia has stationed in the region.

CROATIANS HAVE NO TESLA, OR PUPIN, OR MILANKOVICH BUT THEY DISCOVER SOMETHING FROM TIME TO TIME

Croatians are not known as a very inventive and innovative people. They usurp or copy almost everything.  From the language …

English	“Croatian”		Serb's
	Written in ….
	latinic	cyrilic	cyrilic	latinic
Good morning	Dobro jutro	Добро јутро	Добро јутро	Dobro jutro
Good day	Dobar dan	Добар дан	Добар дан	Dobar dan
Good night	Laku noć	Лаку ноћ	Лаку ноћ	Laku noć
Goodbye	Doviđenja	Довиђења	Довиђења	Doviđenja
How are you?	Kako si?	Како си?	Како си?	Kako si?
I am well	Dobro sam	Добро сам	Добро сам	Dobro sam
and so forth	i tako dalje	и тако даље	и тако даље	i tako dalje

… via pork rinds … 

Though, the pork rinds are obviously "different", just in case Croatian pork rinds are on the left, while Serb's pork rinds are on the right

  

… to national costumes …

Croatian national costume from Slavonia (left), Serb's national costume from Banat (right)

… helmets even.

German helmet from the WWII (left), Croatian helmet from WWII (right)